


Migrating Stars

by KitsJay



Category: Jack Kerouac RPF, Literary RPF
Genre: Catholic Guilt, M/M, RPF, didn't happen, weird poetical ramblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 06:45:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitsJay/pseuds/KitsJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The migration of stars has never been properly explored.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Migrating Stars

He drank too much and talked too much, but man, could he write. Allen had showed him some of the kid’s stuff, and Neal didn’t actually know how old Jack was, but there was something undeniably hopeful about his work, something that staggered into naivety and fell flat on its ass in young and inexperienced. 

Neal wanted to meet him—Neal wanted to meet everybody, “and fuck ‘em, too,” he would say with a grin, but especially writers. No one knew or had quite figured out if he was some kind of talent vampire, sucking at others’ marrow of life, hoping to gain some immortality by virtue of being around them or if he was a muse, supplying inspiration and taking his share through lessons with the writers as the teachers. The lessons could be late night sessions, talking books and legends and poems out or they could be by osmosis. That’s what Neal called it when he fucked some talented person. 

“Talent by osmosis,” he said, laughing. Then he got a kick out of it and said it again: “Talent by osmosis.”

So Neal pestered Allen into introducing him to this new wonder who apparently didn’t need the golden touch of Neal Cassady, and when he met him, those were his first thoughts: he drinks too much, talks too much, but man, could he write.

He was easy on the eyes, too, though Neal had to revise his previous opinion of him as a kid. He owned a handsome face, with deep soulful Frenchmen eyes and an unruly curl in front that he nervously kept tucking back. His voice was soft and lyrical with a memory of another language inside, caught on his tongue and imprisoned by a straight white cage and Neal wanted to find out what French tasted like.

“How do you do it?” Neal asked frankly, taking a long drink and not taking his eyes off Jack.

“Do what?” Jack said. His eyes darted into each corner of the room, then into the corners of Neal’s face. It had taken a while for him to break his shyness—Allen had warned him that Jack was reticent, and it proved to be true. Neal was sure the kid liked him by the quick looks he kept sending his way, but he still acted like a scared rabbit if Neal laughed too loud or moved too quick. Neal’s group did not normally include shy people—only bold, beautiful ones, but maybe they were only like that because of him—and Jack fascinated him.

He stared at him until Jack ducked his head and flushed.

“How do you write like you do? I’ve never read something so open. It was like rain on a sunny day or heaven in a Mexican alley or something.”

“I—“ Jack brushed the errant curl back again. “I write life and whatever comes out is right. It has to be. How can you lie about something you’re doing right then? It’d be like,” he stopped, searching for a way to make Neal understand. “Life is everything. So if you say anything, it has to be true. You can’t lie about life.”

Neal nodded at the explanation, bought Jack another drink, and invited him back to where he was staying. 

Jack muttered something about somebody waiting for him, but Neal had a habit of making people forget about everything else. He was like the flash of red on a quick-flitted bird’s chest—unavoidable, exciting, and something different and better than everywhere he went.

When they staggered into the room, the sun had gone home and darkness was shining through the window Neal left open every night for stars to fly through. A few of them rested on the sill and fire escape, glinting at him knowingly.

“You want a drink?” Neal offered, and Jack shook his head nervously. The curl fell onto his forehead again, but this time Neal reached forward before Jack could, gently brushing the lock of hair back. Jack stared at him, and Neal let his hand card through the rest of Jack’s hair, feeling each strand play on his fingers.

“I—“ Jack began, his voice thinner, higher, walking a tight rope somewhere in his throat, and Neal leaned forward and kissed him, brushing the corner of his mouth before touching his lips. They were story teller lips, and when Neal tasted something sweet under the bourbon and smoke, he knew it was the French he heard trapped inside in the bar.

One of his hands slipped around Jack’s waist, pulling him in close. A shiver ran through Jack, but Neal guessed it was caused by the slight breeze slanting through the open window than from the sudden contact. His other hand cupped the back of Jack’s neck, tilting his face for that perfect angle. He let out a moan. The body underneath his melted obligingly into him.

Neal, through a wealth of practice, guided them into the bedroom without tripping over anything or banging into walls, then tipped Jack onto the bed beneath him.

The bedspread was some awful avocado color with gold trim and whirls, and a neon light from outside painted lurid shadows on Jack’s face, but the scene fit, tailored to the moment. An experience in Neal’s life, walking by in a custom made suit and coat.

The thought made Neal smile with the right side of his mouth, and he bent to cover Jack with his body while his fingers worked efficiently to uncover Jack’s body of unnecessary garments.

Neal loved reading the mad poetry that flickered in people’s eyes while he fucked them face-to-face. In women, it was rough blues poetry; in girls’, ballads; in Allen’s, he saw slow, steady poems about rushing, busy things. In Jack’s, he saw an unsteady beat of guilt and purgatory and nirvana pounding by. Neal loved everybody, but if he was forced to choose an instance where he had to explain the one-true-kind, it would be the urge to copy everything Jack’s eyes said that night and burn it out back in the parking lot and sprinkle the ashes left of it onto the reflection of the night in a puddle of brackish water.

Neal finished, pulling out and flopping next to Jack on the bed with his bare chest heaving. Jack lay still for a moment, then silently rolled onto his side and Neal watched the neon shadows on his sweat-soaked body. Neal moved closer, flopping an arm over Jack’s waist and propped himself up to look in his face. The curl lay flat on his forehead, but it did not hide the trails of salt traveling down Jack’s nose. One of his long, elegant hands curled around the cross that hung around his neck.

People often remarked that Neal would never be confused with a groupie because he never asked stupid questions.

So he didn't try and ask if he hurt him, but apologized simply by wrapping himself closer around Jack's body and nuzzling the back of his neck, pushing his nose against the soft skin there and tried to ignore the feeling that, even though he didn’t put much stock into religion, he had just broken some frail beauty.


End file.
